Day Four

Ok, so, I think for the time being I am not in danger of having a total mental breakdown.  This is not how I felt three days ago.  I already feel the strain of keeping in touch with so many people (including myself) via so many different communication devices, so this blog might have to be a once-in-a-while summary thing.  I dunno.  I don't want you to be disappointed.  But journaling is such a serious commitment and I have already committed myself to writing in this nice gold-edged wooden book that the Mulfords gave me for Vienna.
Anyway here is what has transpired:
Wednesday: Wednesday didn't actually happen.  I guess twenty hours of it was spent on the plane.  It did happen, though, in the sense that I was aware of every one of those twenty hours except for the two in which I managed to sleep.  I am generally such a good sleeper but I started developing a cold right before leaving so I was quite miserable and didn't even feel like writing or reading or thinking during the flight.  There was only one crying baby on the plane which would have been fine if I had gotten to play with it.  But I did not.
Thursday:  We got into Hong Kong at 7AM and managed to mess up the very first thing we were supposed to do, which was to find the ferry terminal in the airport.  It wasn't our fault though, as we had been misinformed.  So we took a bus to somewhere in the city and succeeded in finding the terminal and buying tickets.  The ticket-buying and boarding areas would have been crowded and stressful even if we were Asian-looking and had no baggage.  Neither of these things were true.  *insert - Thursday's description is going to be long because Thursday is like the longest day I have ever experienced, ever.  Skip to Friday to avoid pain.*  So we got on the ferry and I took some Tylenol Cold to stop my dripping nose and I felt disgusting and exhausted but OK.  Then in Zhuhai the University people were waiting for us with a van to take us to our apartments.  The ride was like half an hour long which would have been fine - I mean, it was fine, but it could have been better - if the people who picked us up acted like hosts instead of like...not-hosts.  You know, like "And the ride will be about half an hour, because..." or "And on the left, as you can see, is..." or "And how was your flight? Do you need anything to eat or drink?"  So when we got to the University we were all desperate for a shower and a meal but we had to stand around in this little office getting keys and filling out paperwork, and then going to the bank to take out money so we could go to the store to buy towels in order to take said shower in order to go out and look presentable for a meal.  This was all very exhausting.  The rest of the day was spent hauling suitcases up lots of stairs, having dinner with the strangely non-talkative head of the English department, taking the bus downtown (another half an hour in the opposite direction as the ferry) in order to buy sheets at the huge and busy department store so that we could sleep on more than a mattress in our spacious but much-nastier-than-I'm-used-to apartments.  By the time we got back around 9PM, I wasn't even tired.  Just confused. And weepy.  I actually think some of this might have felt adventurous instead of torturous except that I had this stupid cold and was going through tissues like I knew where to find them when I had used all of mine.  (This wasn't true, about knowing where to find them.)  Oh, also, the humidity here is incredible.  It's not even that hot, it's just that the air feels like sauna air.  Those of you who have traveled with me, or spent more than two hours with me, know how I like to feel fresh and have my hair fixed and such, and...I was not happy.   Maybe I'll get over it and learn to be totally low maintenance like other Skidmore girls?  Probably not? 
Well so then I went to bed and slept poorly, without a blanket, haha, good thing you made me take that big scarf, Ma.
Friday: I don't exactly remember what we did this day because it wasn't as uncomfortable as Thursday but not as recent as yesterday.  I think this is when we went to an opening ceremony thing and listened to folks give speeches in Mandarin for an hour.  This was actually pleasant because we weren't walking in the humidity, and I didn't mind just sitting in it.  It was kind of like sitting in a hot tub with a bit less wetness, and listening to boring speeches except better because you don't even have to think about what is being said.  Because you have no idea.  The tone of most of the speakers sounded like that I'm-feeding-you-propaganda-right-now kind of thing, but I can't really judge because all I hear is "ching chong ya dui ya... ARABIC he yong ka shui ba ya....STUDENTS mei you ma ni de xing xi....FRANCE.......SCIENCE...." etc.
Saturday: I still slept poorly and had this dang cold but felt a bit more secure and not like I wanted to write "WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?!" on this blog like I did on Thursday.   By the way, I've already been informed of how many people come here to teach and can't hack it, which was a great confidence-booster.  Apparently last year by winter break half of their foreign teachers had decided to go home?! Stop giving me that option!! Anyway that afternoon we had a good meal (which we still wouldn't be able to handle ourselves what with Chinese folks taking us to the restaurant and doing all the ordering and such, and not explaining how to recreate the process) and then went off campus to walk around.  The surrounding area is made up of dirty, run-down streets and buildings, with people on bikes and scooters, and old ladies in those domed hats crouching over buckets of squirming eels.  You know, like what you think of when you think of urban China.  It was cool.  There were a ton of shops with
*I just got a phone call that informed me that I would be teaching a pre-master level English course tomorrow, Monday.  Surprise!
-a ton of shops with cheap products (like, the kind of manufactured stuff I tried to stop buying two years ago in the states) and shoes and food and things.  American dollar store-style stuff.  Like if an entire community were to subsist on dollar store quality products.  But it was fun - we attracted a lot more attention there than on campus.  In Europe places like this feel sketchy because there are all kinds of creepy men and naughty-looking children, but the Chinese are rather friendly so it just felt fun instead of scary.  Well, no, still scary.  But also fun.  Even children know to say "hello" instead of "ni hao."  So then we came back to the apartments and I layed around trying to nap and couldn't but felt OK anyway. 
Well this length is getting ridiculous.  It's impossible to explain everything interesting or weird.  I haven't really been able to smell much, which is the most important thing!, because my nose has been snuffly.  That fact will probably mis-color my entire impression of my arrival in China, because I couldn't associate anything with smells!  How sad.  So I guess I'm OK so far.  Transitions have always been particularly rough for me, even going back to Skidmore from Binghamton after winter break or something, even though I dislike Binghamton, and even after doing it for four years.  So if I don't feel like myself in two weeks, then I'll worry.  Or maybe I'm not supposed to feel like myself.  Or maybe I shouldn't strive to feel like myself.  Or maybe it wouldn't be possible here to feel like myself.  I wish I had a dog.